obe - 2019 - Rebuild

Post Rock

[FOR FREE]

http://ordersofthebritishempire1.bandcamp.com/album/rebuild

• 4 songs to download
• For free
• Direct Download
• Listening recommendations: What Would You Do

Impressions

You may be asking yourself, “Where is the instrumental post-rock loving Gabbo at?”, and I would reply, “Right here!”, and I've got a new record to recommend. Yes, obe's (that's “Orders of the British Empire”) 'Rebuild', a post-rock EP filled to the brim with atmosphere as much as it is hard hitting, and it's plenty hard. The atmosphere is where the guitar gets let out to play, with bluesy riffs expanded out into the ether. These slower sections and all of “Roundabouts” are a little gloomy, especially when it's seemingly just keyboards building upon themselves with a drum lick or guitar note fluttering through the gray. The faster, sections are technical showpieces for the wall of guitars coming out of your speakers. These may twinge with metal's ferocity, but it's not haphazardly ferocious. No, the band showcases their artistry in these sections by keeping things technical, but under control. The music is well crafted so that everything fits nicely in place: hard rock melting away into low key post-rock tinkering without losing a beat, and vice-versa. The slower atmospheric sections gradually building to the explosive thunder of the hard rock with a natural progression. The band's bandcamp page lists 'cinematic' as one of their tags, and I would say that description fits quite well..To my brain it sounds a bit like the soundtrack for 28 Days Later, if Aaron Turner (of Isis) had been involved in the song writing or Friday Night Lights had music as hard as the hits in the film. You might hear something completely different. There is really only one negative thing that stuck out for me on this EP, and it's the drumming on the opening track “Rebuild with Gunpowder”. The drumming in parts of the song sound out of time with the rest of the instruments, and while it may have been intentional to give the song a stuttering, progressive rhythm, that rhythm is difficult to listen to, sounding so disjointed as it does. The drumming is superb on the rest of the EP, and I would be hesitant to think one rough spot is enough to derail listening to this record.